Calendar of Cool: Women’s Equality Day

Today, August 26th, is Women’s Equality Day. Designated by Congress in 1971, this is also the anniversary of the passage in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

After the Civil War, women began the battle to gain the right to vote. Despite being taxpaying citizens of the United States, half of the population had been denied this right due to nothing more than their gender. Various groups and organizations battled for decades to gain suffrage, using tactics such as marches, protests, and even illegal attempts at voting to bring attention to the issue.

For the first 144 years of the United States’ existence, only men could vote. But after the efforts of civil rights heroes such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Jeannette Rankin, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. For the first time in America’s history, all adult citizens had the legal right to vote.